Detroit Electric - 2008 Revival

2008 Revival

Detroit Electric was an early 20th century electric car, “perhaps the most popular in history,” according to Albert Lam, Chairman and CEO. The Anderson Electric Car Company started building cars under the Detroit Electric brand over 100 years ago.

7 February 2008
In a joint announcement, the US electric car pioneer and Chinese Youngman Automotive Group announced that they would revive the 100 year-old electric car brand Detroit Electric for an automotive joint venture to bring new vehicle technologies to market.

In August 2008, led by Chairman and CEP Albert Lam, a management buy-out of Detroit Electric was completed, ending the involvement of ZAP and China Youngman Automobile Group. In the agreement, ZAP and China Youngman Automobile Group agreed to sell its ownership rights in Detroit Electric for $750,000, the amount it had originally invested.

According to an SEC filing, the Detroit Electric joint venture, named after America’s oldest and longest-running electric car company, was launched in September 2007 with Youngman. Originally called EV Holdings Ltd. and incorporated in Hong Kong, the venture was renamed Detroit Electric early this year. ZAP and Youngman had originally agreed to invest a total of $100 million in the venture, but the companies quickly agreed to revise that to just $5 million, $2.5 million each. However, even that truncated investment was never made, and both ZAP and Youngman were unsuccessful in securing outside financing to help float the nascent Detroit Electric, according to the SEC filing.

Detroit Electric recently announced a working agreement with Proton Holdings in Malaysia. Under the agreement, Detroit Electric will license two Proton vehicle platforms and contract the company to assemble the electric vehicles that will be marketed under Detroit Electric’s brand. This agreement will provide Detroit Electric with its first manufacturing base.